So, been busy building a couple night flyer Slow Sticks (aka Night Sticks) for me and the kid to fly on lazy summer nights. I have red/green the length of the wing tips, white the width of the underside of wing, blue the length of the top and bottom of the tail, and 3 green/red on the vert stab. 150 leds per plane, upgraded BL motors (enough to make the wings flutter level wot), 35amp esc's, nice balsa battery trays, with 2200mah 3S and landing gear mounts with thicker gear wire and nice wheels. Also decent servos and horns, 45 degree or more throw, they roll nice for as much dihedral as they have, ailerons help a lot.

Maiden last night, kids up just before me and immediately calls a mayday. So I am trying to land and help him out, and almost fly into the side of my brand new truck. I get down, grab his radio and he is saying its not responding properly. By the time I have the sticks it a good 700+ yards out and the leds are just a colorful blur, but I can control it. After several attempt to regain orientation and bring it back, I realize it too far out, cant get a bearing on it. So I go into "let it down easy mode" and try to flair it down. I lose it behind a tree line and we toss the gear in the truck and haul butt the in the last know heading. My kid is apologizing like crazy, and I am trying to tell him its okay, just $100 in parts and several hours of my time wasted, no biggie, we can build a better one, no worries. Not 5 minutes later, and over a mile away we find the plane, sitting on its wheels at the end of a drive way, just waiting for us to come rescue it. Not a scratch on it. Seriously shocked we found it at all. Flew 6 packs on mine, got really comfortable and attracted several people wanting to know what the UFO was. Night flying is a spectator sport. We are in a HUGE church parking lot / field on the edge of town. Lots of room, and people can see our planes for miles away, so they tell us. Even the county Sheriff came to check it out.

Day two, success. Rebalance and trim the kids plane, he flys three packs, but only when I am on the ground, the planes look to similar and it makes him nervous. Even though I placed the lights a little differently anticipating this. Doesn't bother me, I can tell them apart, but want to let him build confidence so I watch a lot. he got 4 packs in I have 2. I feel like a pro, this is really fun.

Day 3, third night in a row, wife is now less than amused at our new ritual. 3 packs each, and I am looping the light poles like a pylon racer, wing fluttering, WOT all the way. Having a blast. The light poles are like stadium lights so the parking area is bright, the field is dark, its hard on the eyes and the depth perception. I make a wide open swoop into the parking lot and WACK!!!! Straight into the top of the light pole, the plane stay stuck in the lights, wedged sideways a good 40-50 feet up. Now I am a big fella, 6,3 and about 275lbs. No way I am shimming up a light pole, not with my gravity allergies. How do we get it down. Throw rocks at it, no, but it was on my list. Chop the pole down? Nope, aluminum, thought of that too. Ram the pole with the truck and shake it lose? Frowned upon, dunno why. I bumped the throttle on accident after about 5mins of pondering and it the questions answered itself. The prop made and awful ringing noise as it tried to chew through the light fixture, and into the free airspace beyond. As soon as it came lose I knew we had a problem. I could see the tail was 90 degrees turned from normal alignment to the wing, because all the rubber band on one side broke, making for some interesting flying. My rudder is now my elevator and elevator is rudder. For some reason the throttle isnt helping much either. I managed a fairly smooth landing and discovered why. I have half a prop, my main wing is cut almost in half, and the rear wing mount is broken. Not to bad considering it was a full speed collision. Couple pieces of clear tape, a new prop and some rigging to repair the damage mount an its ready for round two. I love this cheap piece of Chinese styrofoam.

Well, you all know I picked up some XPS equipment for my 9CHP. I was reading the thread and the owner of XPS made a statement that just blew me away about the new Nano they are releasing. This was in reference to Cabon Fiber Sail Planes RX's that normally come with the long antenna which they stopped carring.

"The new receivers offer even better range with tight weave 100% carbon than anything else we produced. If you do have a Nano receiver you should try installing one to see what your range is. Depending on the type of carbon weave your range could be quite acceptable with the Nano. If you don't have 100% carbon then you likely don't need anything else but the Nano. "

Great report stick.
Whats going on with your 120?
DOG are you going with a 6 cell or an 8 cell, and what batteries?
Are you going to use a seperate bec for your RX and servo's, if so which one.
I 'm sorta thinking of making my YAK electric and could use a little advice.

that's a crazy warranty he is putting out there IMO. He must be Very confident in his product. I might have to look at the XPS stuff for my A9.

Yeah.... After just buying the product its really cool to heear that. The new RX version that is coming can operate between 1.8 and 16 volts, I am not sure you should ever see a brownout if it will stand 1.8 volts on the low side.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kerwin50

DOG are you going with a 6 cell or an 8 cell, and what batteries?
Are you going to use a seperate bec for your RX and servo's, if so which one.
I 'm sorta thinking of making my YAK electric and could use a little advice.

I always run a seperate power source then the speed controller so I can have 6 volts to the servos and if I let the magic smoke out of the ESC, radio stands on its own. I have many of them already from HK.and I will run 2 of them in case one fails. I am always going to go to the lightest wing load so 6 cell would be the choice, zippy, flightmax, prolly for Lipo.

Well, you all know I picked up some XPS equipment for my 9CHP. I was reading the thread and the owner of XPS made a statement that just blew me away about the new Nano they are releasing. This was in reference to Cabon Fiber Sail Planes RX's that normally come with the long antenna which they stopped carring.

"The new receivers offer even better range with tight weave 100% carbon than anything else we produced. If you do have a Nano receiver you should try installing one to see what your range is. Depending on the type of carbon weave your range could be quite acceptable with the Nano. If you don't have 100% carbon then you likely don't need anything else but the Nano. "

I am going to send my 9c in to hobby services for repairs, when I get it back I was thinking of trying another module in it. I tried a Spektrum module, and in fact I still have it, but it didn't work well. Of course now I don't know if it was the module or my radio because now I am convinced there is a problem with the radio. Still, I won't try that module again since it almost cost me my 35% extra on her maiden flight! Anyway, I'd love to know what your experience with this combo has been. I'd really like to use my 9c again and this might be a viable upgrade for it.

I am going to send my 9c in to hobby services for repairs, when I get it back I was thinking of trying another module in it. I tried a Spektrum module, and in fact I still have it, but it didn't work well. Of course now I don't know if it was the module or my radio because now I am convinced there is a problem with the radio. Still, I won't try that module again since it almost cost me my 35% extra on her maiden flight! Anyway, I'd love to know what your experience with this combo has been. I'd really like to use my 9c again and this might be a viable upgrade for it.

Love my 9CHP but as a 72 radio it is the SLOWEST thing on the market. I added the Spread Rectrum mod and love it for indoors but not so much at the outdoor field. http://www.xtremepowersystems.net/ Check out the "2.4GHz Spread Spectrum Air Product Comparison Guide" if you get serious about it. I am not sure when the new rx's are going to release, current nano rx's can drop to 2.7 volts before brown out. I am very interested in the new TX when it comes out, that may make my 9C a back up / indoor radio.

Love my 9CHP but as a 72 radio it is the SLOWEST thing on the market. I added the Spread Rectrum mod and love it for indoors but not so much at the outdoor field. http://www.xtremepowersystems.net/ Check out the "2.4GHz Spread Spectrum Air Product Comparison Guide" if you get serious about it. I am not sure when the new rx's are going to release, current nano rx's can drop to 2.7 volts before brown out. I am very interested in the new TX when it comes out, that may make my 9C a back up / indoor radio.

Snowman it was an honor to fly Jack211's T_ _ _ T Can't wait to get back out there with it. Thanks so much

Plow Good luck on the 9C that is always a scary situation on a plane that size and a maiden to boot

Stick that was an awesome flight report glad you got the plane back too Ya gotta love those kind a endings, and we now carry a bow and arrow with fish line on it to try and retrieve the planes stuck in high places lol we even used a fishing pole a few times trying to get a mustang down from a 95 foot or better tree top our fishing guys loved that challenge. a sling shot shooting a big bolt and nut with fish line just couldn't get the height. the cowboy lasso toss didn't ebven come close, and I myself climbed a tree next to it as high as I could go maybe 25-30 feet to the top and was fed a nice 40 foot pole we had duct taped 2 20 foot pool skimmer poles together and another 10 foot rod and our 10 foot wind sock pole and still couldn't get close enough to tap it. the bow and arrow was the ticket to get the line to the plane but we still ended up getting a guy with tree climbing equipment to get it as it was now up there for over a week and was caught in it pretty good. we eventually got the plane back and it needed a good repair from the drop when it missed the net and hit the ground LOL and yeah whats going on with the 1.20

CR1 LOL My wife thinks the same

Brathanke Sorry for the oops but yes a quick and pretty repair job for sure was completed Glad to see it wasn't too bad

DOG I love the way the motor sounds also Its nice to finally see it run without a crash as it was in that Garbage ME109 I have and that plane went down every single flight It was the first time that engine actually made the whole flight and landed even though it still nosed over LOL I have to say they gave me aful puny wheels on that edge I didn't even use them and went with the T_ _ _ T 40 wheels I had laying around I might even go to a bigger wheel as our runway is rough.

Quote:

Does this mean i have to drink Latte with one pinky finger tweaked up?

that or a Frapachino you may need a european hand bag to tote those leccy bats around also